Unit 12 Mainly revision
扩展资料
Modern zoos
Modern zoos are different from those built fifty years ago. At that time zoos were places where people could go to see animals from many parts of the world. The animals lived in cages with iron bars(铁栏). Although the zoo keepers took good care of them, many of the animals did not feel comfortable, and they often fell ill. In modern zoos .people can see animals in more natural conditions. The animals are given more freedom in larger places so that they can live more as they would in nature. Even the appearance of zoos has changed. Trees and grass grow in cages, and water flows through the places the animals live in. There are few bars; instead there is often a deep ditch(沟), filled with water, which surrounds a space where several sorts of animals live together as they would naturally. In an American zoo, the visitors can walk through a huge special cage that is filled with trees .some small animals and many birds, and large enough for the birds to live naturally. In a zoo in New York. with the use of special nightlight, people can observe certain animals that are active only at night, when most zoos are closed. Some zoos have special places for visitors to watch animals that live in the desert or under water. Modern zoos not only show animals to visitors’ but also keep and save rare animals. For that reason, fifty years from now, the grandchildren of today’s visitors will still he able to enjoy watching these animals.
扩展资料
Giant Panda
What animal is black
and white and loved all over the world?
If you guessed the giant panda, you’re
right! The giant panda is also known as
the panda bear, bamboo bear, or in Chinese
as Daxiongmao, the “large bear cat.” In
fact, its scientific name means “black
and white cat - footed animal.”
Giant pandas are found only in the mountains
of central China, in small isolated areas
of the north and central portions of the
Sichuan Province, in the mountains bordering
the southernmost part of Gansu Province
and in the Qinling Mountains of the Shaanxi
Province.
Ciant pandas live in dense bamboo and
coniferous forests at altitudes of 5,000
to 10,000 feet. Tie mountains are shrouded
in heavy clouds with torrential rains
or dense mist throughout the year.
Giant pandas have existed since the
Pleistocene
Era (about 600,000 years ago), when their
geographic range extended throughout southern
China. Fossil remains also have been found
in present - day Burma.
Giant pandas are bear - like in shape
with striking black and white markings.
The ears, eye patches, legs and shoulder
band are black; the rest of the body is
whitish. They have thick, woolly coats
to insulate them from the cold. Adults
are four to six feet long and may weigh
up to 350 pounds, about the same size
as the American black bear. However, unlike
the black bear, giant pandas do not hibernate
and cannot walk on their hind legs.
The giant panda has unique front paws,
one of the wrist bones is enlarged and
elongated and is used like a thumb, enabling
the giant panda to grasp stalks of bamboo.
They also have very powerful jaws and
teeth to crush bamboo. While bamboo stalks
and roots make up about 95 percent of
its diet, the giant panda also feeds on
gentians, irises, crocuses, fish, and
occasionally small rodents. It must eat
20 to 40 pounds of food each day to survive,
and spends ten to sixteen hours a day
feeding.
The giant panda reaches breeding maturity
between four and ten years of age. Mating
usually takes place in the spring, and
three to five months later, one or two
cubs weighing three to five ounces each
is born in a sheltered den. Usually only
one cub survives. The eyes open at one
to two months and the cub becomes mobile
at approximately three months of age.
At twelve months the cub becomes totally
independent. While their average life
span in the wild is about fifteen years,
giant pandas in captivity have been known
to live well into their twenties.
Scientists have debated for more than
a century whether giant pandas belong
to the bear family, the raccoon family
or a separate family of their own. This
is because the giant panda and its cousin,
the lesser or red panda, share many characteristics
with both bears and raccoons. Recent DNA
analysis indicates that giant pandas are
more closely related to bears and red
pandas are more closely related to raccoons.
Accordingly, giant pandas are categorized
in the bear family while red pandas are
categorized in die raccoon family.
In 1869, a French missionary and naturalist
named Pere Armand David was the first
European to describe the giant panda.
In 1936, clothing designer Ruth Harkness
brought the first live giant panda, named
Su - Lin, out of China and to the West.
Su - Lin lived at Chicago’s Brookfield
Zoo and was a celebrity until he died
in 1938. Today, 124 giant pandas are found
in Chinese zoos. Only about 20 giant pandas
live in zoos outside of China. In 1980,
the first giant panda birth outside China
occurred at the Mexico City Zoo.
Until recently, Washington, D.C.’s National
Zoo housed Ling- Ling and Hsing- Hsing,
perhaps the most well - known giant pandas
in North America. A gift from the People’s
Republic of China to the people of the
United States, they were presented as
a gesture of amity and goodwill to President
Richard Nixon when he visited China in
1972. Ling- Ling, at age 23, died in December
1992.
This fact sheet comes courtesy of the
United States Fish and Wildlife Service.
扩展资料
Most Successful Animal Alive
Which is the most successful
animal alive today? Is it the lion, yawning(打着呵欠的)and
stretching in the midday African sun,
or is it some insect in millions, deep
in the Amazon rainforest? A good case
could be made for humans themselves, of
course. But the animal that seems to have
made the most of its limited opportunities
is the domestic (家养的) sleep, closely followed
by the horse, the pig, the cow, the dog,
and all the other domesticated creatures.
These animals have hitch-hiked(得免费搭车的机会)
a ride with humans on the fast track to
development. They have escaped the pressures
which would have wiped some of them out
and increased their share of the total
living matter on earth. In 1860, humans
and domesticated animals represented about
five percent of all plant and animal life,
while today they are about twenty percent,
according to biologist Raymond Coppinger
of Hampshire College, Massachusetts. “The
domestic animals, the dependent animals,
the ones that have made themselves fit
in with the existence of humans, they
are the success stories in the history
of animal development,” he says.
This is certain to cause an argument
because it denies a central claim(要求)of
the animal rights movement. Among those
who argue that animals should have the
same rights as humans, domestication means
humans profiting (得益)from animals; as
they see it, humans have simply used animals
for their own selfish purposes, using
increasingly cruel methods.The idea that
domestication (驯化), instead of serving
a human purpose, has actually helped animals
to survive and develop is revolutionary
and will probably make the animal rights
movement even angrier. Yet there is evidence
to support it.
But if, as it seems, it was animals
that took the first step in the process
of domestication, agreeing to live with
humans on a voluntary(自愿的) basis. What
exactly did they get from it? Biologists
argue that the driving force in all animals
is the desire to ensure that they and
their future generations survive, and
if this is right then it is clear where
the benefits to animals lay. Wild sheep
today have been almost wiped out, wild
cows have been wiped out and wild horses
would very likely have been wiped out
if it were not for domestication.